companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the u.s. economy this year. in pipes, cement, steel, jobs, energy. we need to get the wheels turning. i'm proud of that. making real things... for real. ...that make a real difference. ♪ good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. a suicide bomber killed six and illinois congressman jesse jackson jr. has been released from the mayo clinic after being

treated for depression. right now i'm joined by victoria defrancesco soto. democratic congressman jerrold nadler of new york coming back to the table fresh off his time in charlotte this week. john mcwwhorter. a columnist in the "new york daily news" and the legendary joe weisenthal also returning to the prak. on thursday a few hours before president obama was to give his speech accepting the democratic nomination for president he got a phone call informing him of the jobs number for the most o august. they weren't very good. the one month's numbers are often revised and debee what it was in 2000. it's easy to remember the pretty

sitting and drafting the speech, thinking how to modulate the tone knowing what the jobs headlines would be the next day. ees ha to walk a fine line between hope and more regard. or maybe more accurately he had to thread them together. the president stepped on stage in charlotte and readjusted expectations. >> the truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. it will require common effort and shared responsibility and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that frank listen roosevelt pursued during the crisis only worse than this one. >> i love that line because it

opens up the possibility of trying things. we just have not been trying anything. congressman nadler, you were in the hall. how did you find the speech in terms of the way that it attacked head on what is clearly from a political perspective the chief weakness for the president, which is the unemployment rate clrks is economy and the recovery. >> the president said what he cade. that is, we look at the progress we've made and how far we've come. the depth of the catastrophe has not really been appreciated. it note what we want but is solid progress compared to the 800,000 jobs we were losing a month when the president came in

and the republican congress has blocked every attempt to continue this. i mean the real and coming the day after president clinton laid it out, slashing it in detail, i think the president did what he needed to do. the key in all this -- >> you've got the floor. >> i think after seeing president sclinton speech it probably will be. when the president took office we were losing 77 . wi saved the car industry and a few other things and turned it around so we were gaining 250 through jobs be the middle of 2010.

we turned around a million jobs a month. then the president realized it was a 1 1/2-year, two-year still stimulus bill, he said we've got to continue it and offered the american jobs act of 2011 and the republicans killed it and every single step to keep it going. the rye alt is the congress stopped progress which is why i'm not at all surprised the job growth in 2011 was greater than the one of 2012. now they have blocked every attempt to keep this going. >> and the republicans are under the impression that somehow they would have done something to given us more jobsen faster in some way. but it's clear what they're really expecting is jobs to be

created through more passive processes to take more tiej and sous so obviously. >> i pulled up bush's speech from 2004 subscription, the similarities are striking. in 2004 bush was saying it was an extirnl shot. we can't make this happen but we've got to plow through it president obama said the same thing. i thought it was interesting the parallel how bush kit him on his weak spot and mitt romney was hit on his week spaus. >> i fell the same way actually . bates isser crisis, inhair itting crisis and leadership and

acknowledging the fact that things very fwenten and their improvened. the boog difference that is creating the policies that created the crisis knowing in 2004 they were saying let's get acal kay to hid a fwrachblt the reaction in dealing with the crisis was far, fares far more better. 6. >> i think one of the things that are frustrating is there are reasons. there's another aspect that you can see in this jobs report which is the global slowdown is really hitting the u.s. >> yeah. >> manufacturers had one of their worst months in a while but actually dough mystically yorp yenlted service things, food, retail had their best in some kay.

it's a test in the economy. the u.s. recovery is impressive on a global scale. >> if you're grading on a curve, u.s. gets it, no question. >> clinton did a good job the night before sayinging look it's not gate but here's the retiermtd for the respondent. so it's kind of an ee thr or thing. >> and the fact is also it's rare in life that you get a controlled sane experiment. you've got to control it now in great britain, spain and ireland. europe is collapsing economically part of it where

they were following pa that states here. the idea there's an explain this chief can do it for now. if hi doesn't do it himself. he could look weeker. >> i know our client has talked about this. obama care, we are owning these message a and i think that ispy peace river at point. now the president has to personify that more instead of running way. >> the most concrete example ol' f that, boy uld say. i thought this was surprising. if you went back and said four years from now when the presidentst s at the convention what would figure more in. t the recoveringry act or the bail joutd?

i would have said the recovery act. it's a great story. it is certainly the case the auto bailout has got i warmy attention. i want to show a bit of the speech and play it. it has a kind of concreteness. take a look. >> i've met workers in detroit and toledo who felt they would never build another american car and today they can't build them fast enough because we reinve reinvented a dialing industry that's back on top of the world. i've worked with business leaders who are bringing jobs back to america not because our workers make less pay, because we make better products and work harder and smarter than anyone else. >> and that was the president

talking about the auto rescue joe biden talked about it. he said there are two policies you should judge the record on. ordering the raid on osama bin lad about is compound and the gm. i want to bring in jerry bernstein, one of the people sitting in the room during much of the deliberations over how to deal with the economic crisis right after we take this break. . boring. boring. [ jack ] after lauren broke up with me, i went to the citi private pass page and decided to be...not boring. that's how i met marilyn... giada... really good. yes! [ jack ] ...and alicia. ♪ this girl is on fire [ male announcer ] use any citi card to get the benefits of private pass. more concerts, more events, more experiences. [ jack ] hey, who's boring now? [ male announcer ] get more access with the citi card.

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i want to bring in msnbc contributor jerry berstein former economic policy provider for joe biden. now senior. we played that moment in the speech about the auto rescue and

the auto rescue was really front and sunner. i want to ask you the question. if we'd gone back to january or february of 2009 and you had to predetective which would feature more prominently in this convention, what would your prediction have been? >> mine would have been the same as yours. even though, by the way, neither were polling all that great, particularly the auto bailout. it was always a kind of a head scratcher for me. that actually polled worse than the t.a.r.p. at the time, believe it or not. i don't think i've every heard a senior official spend as much time touting the benefits of the auto bailout as the vice president did the other night. it's interesting. a lot of people -- i have been one of them saying, boy, this is really a great intervention. i think the word "iconic" was used earlier in the sense of the auto industry. i get that. i think it's also a class study

between the kind of interventions you heard about this in the dnc week anti antipathy. >> you heard the speech. jennifer granholm went through listing the jobs in the different states. that part of the concreteness is what is so remarkable about the political case for the auto rescue. >> yeah. i think one of the things that people don't know enough about is the supply chain that would have come down had gm and chrysler essentially liquidated because there wasn't the type of private finance investing at the time. when i was working for the vice president, i don't remember where exactly it was, but inextend of going to the big auto companies at the end of the production line, we went to a bunch of supplier and tried to

explain the job creation gong on there. there are far more that work at the supply children that work on the end of it. it was in the oval office when the president had to make a de-sonics this. as the vice president said the other night, he was getting advice on both sides. this was not a slam-dunk by any stretch of the imagination. >> we were talking before about the recovery act and then the second round of stimulus proposed by the president called by the president as a jobs act. the american jobs act did not appear in the president's speech and it wasn't like -- joe, you've been someone banging the table for more stimulus, more efforts by the federal reserve, by congress, by everyone to address the jobs crisis. did you feel the president addressed it enough? did he -- was there enough of a clarion call, enough of a

drawing distinction of what they're obstructing and proposing? >> no. this is actually one of the points i was frustrated by, this idea that we have a jobs crisis and a debt crisis. i think we don't have a debts crisis and if we should eight indicate our priorities it should be 99% toward jobs and 1/2% mentioned. i guess i understand the politics for trillion deficit cuts or whatever. one of my greatest economists talking about the national debt is like talking about someone has a heart attack and they're being rushed into the hospital and the doctor's baerjing them about their insurance as they're going in. it makes no sense. fix the crisis you have right now. i wonder. it just seems terrible salesmanship to argue for it and which he kind of did in this vague sense, we're going do nation building in the u.s. and stuff while also conceding this broad point that we have this fictitious crisis. >> one little addition to that.

i very much agree with those sentiments. the debt markets are actually kind of shouting out for more of the kind of jobs measures in the short term that would help to boost growth as a time when borrowing costs are so low that the contribution to the deficit makes it a very good deal for the guy. >> i totally agree with what jared and j john and joe said. we have negative interest rates we're going to be borrowing more money, hiking the deficit in order to invest in infrastructure and roads and brilks and highways and hospitals and education and things that will make the economy more competitive, generate more jobs right now and make us come tellive in the future and then you pay down the

debt. that's standard economics which we learned in college. unfortunately you've gotten most of them saying we've got this terrible debt crisis. we need to eliminate the entire sequestration. romney points out quite correctly that if you see sques tr all the funds you're cutting jobs, but you also cut jobs if you do that with the other jobs. admit it was a mistake. it would throw the country into chaos by not paying our bills on the debt ceiling. just eliminate that entirely. but unfortunately because we haven't laid a predicate over the last four years by explaining to the american people, the deficit which is hiked because of the recession,

because of the employment -- >> it is interesting that you just blew by something very important. everybody's keynesian all of a season, ride? eaves all of a sudden talking the keynesian book. >> but there's more about politics and this is getting to what you were talking about chris, which is if we would have expected they'd be more interesting, the stimulus rather than the bailout, then this would be a country that has better education policies. notice how little that was talked about. we would have to have a populist that actually understood some of the basics of economics, not something so dry. the bailout is a story. you could make a movie about it. all of that is easier to sell if you're trying to do something to swing voters. and so actually i would have predicted 3 1/2

years ago that when it came down to what you were going to make speeches about with music playing it would have been about saving big companies and giving joe lunch pale a job rather than something more abstract. >> remember, this is the demographic he needs most. the president has a solid base with the black and latino community but the joe lunch pail is the one he's struggling with. >> the president also talked about the future agenda, which i thought was remarkably consistent with 2008. we'll take a look at that. and i want to talk a line about bill clinton's speech which made me panic a little bit about what's in the mind of policy makers right after this break.

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you know, there's this story about barack obama which is

about this stealth camp, these gra grandee yoes visions of it. what's remarkable is how the invest of that is true in so much as the domestic policy agent dan -- this is not true of civil liberties. what he said on the campaign is precisely what he did when he got into office more or less and there's a remarkable amount of consistency actually in the basic economic policy vision and waemt back and compared 2008 convex speech and the 2012 convention speech. you can get a sense of that if you take a look. >> no family should have to set aside a college sep tangs letter because they don't have the money. >> we will keep our promise to every young american. if you commit to serving your community or our country, we will make sure you can afford a college education. >> i've cut taxes for those who

need it. middle-class families, small businesses. >> i will cut taxes, cut taxes for 95% of all working families because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class. >> we've opened up millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration in the last three years and we'll do more. >> we'll tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology and find ways to safely harness pow stheer some of those policies i don't like. in fact, clean coal is a ridiculous prediction and we're not going to drill our way out of a crisis that is headed thwart our planet but you can't say it wasn't consistent. the dominant story between this is -- in a lot of ways, and i think this is true of the figure

of barack obama in so many ways, there's been kind of a remarkable consistency. he is who he is. basic squarely in the middle of the coalition politics. >> and the bedrock was also of health care reform and in that clip, we didn't show that, but he ran on that. that's what anchored his campaign and he delivered on it. >> yeah. >> and for a long time democrats were running away from it but they've finally come back to embrace it and you can link that to the economy whereas in this time of social need it's become more relevant. >> they would say that's part of the social iism so. >> it's no surprise. he said it in 2008. >> wait a minute. the part of socialism, the dominant reality of our politics today is two things. the republican party has become extremely, i would say radically right wing party on social issues and on economic issues. the democratic parties have

become a liberal party and a much more conservative party than it used to be on economic issues. if this were 30 years ago, if obama were not a centrist, we would have taken medicare and expanded it at a single payer system to the entire population instead of essentially in 1993 republican plan for providing insurance through the private sector through the insurance companies. this is not socialism. >> that's what the original intention was under the table, i thought. >> jared -- >> no it is remarkable. most think he raised a lot of people's taxes. it's not exactly the opposite in a pretty big way. i'dal say -- instead of echoing jerry, you can see that in the

regulatory discussion. who in their right mind would argue that financial markets could regulate themselves. i think he's pretty pragmatic and centrist on many of these ideas and gets behind financial regulation. that's going to tear the financial markets down. they can't survive it if they have to pay attention to anyone looking over their shoulder. they can wreck late themselves. we saw what that did. i think it's very much a move to the right, yeah. >> the overlay on that, the way the president's campaign wants to talk about it is not left/right for a whole host of reasons and obviously any nomination speech at a convention is aimed toward the middle. there was very oblique relationships to it. he didn't say marriage between a man and woman. he said institution of marriage. this is just -- i want to give a

taste of that, the basic contours of this forward/backward argument. >> i've cut taxes for those who need it. middle-class families, small businesses, but i don't believe that another round of tax breaks for millionaires will bring good jobs to our shores or pay down our deficit. i don't believe firing teachers or kicking students off financial aid will help us compete with scientists and engineers coming out of china. after all we've been through, i don't believe that rolling back regulations on wall street will help the small businesswoman expand or the laid off construction worker keep his home. we have been there. we've tried that, and we're not going back. >> it's a very effective argument to me, but what's interesting here is you have two plains upon which this is happening. there's the long-term decision,

which is why the consistency. long-term investigation that can outbuild, outcompete. what is a long-term trajectory of the economy, right? rebuilding it. then that's the short-term jobs crisis which continues to burn across the land essentially unaddressed. i think i understand the political plan to focus on it. you're talking abscond term but it remains the case that the most pressing part of our politics is just there and not being addressed. i want to return to how we can address it after we take this break. ♪ ♪ i can do anything ♪ i can do anything today ♪ i can go anywhere ♪ i can go anywhere today ♪ la la la la la la la [ male announcer ] dow solutions help millions of people by helping to make gluten free bread that doesn't taste gluten free.

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short-term case because that gets less emphasis. dealership think it gets less emphasis because the president does. thank care about it far, far more than the republican party does. a, that it's the fact of the moment, and, b, things have been politically cut off. before you can talk about how to solve the jobs crisis, there has to be a theory about how to solve a jobs crisis. a mavis crisis, followed by a recession, a lack of demand. but bill clinton had a line in his speech the other night. i thought it was remarkable and fantastic. there's one line that gave me a little bit of worry when he said the following. >> we need a lot more new jobs, but there are already more than 3 million jobs open and unfilled in america. mostly because the people who apply for them don't have the

required skills to do them. so even as we get americans more jobs we have to prepare the americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. the old economy is not coming back. we've got to build a new one and educate people to do those jobs. >> there's two -- roughly two theories about why we have a job crisis. cyclical, right, we had a huge recession frmg and a structural sorry which is kind of the story bill clinton is telling which is there's a mismatch between the skills that are needed and the skills that americans have. plowing money into demand is not going to fix it. if you think that, you doeptd think there's much to be done in the short term, which is what worried me. joe, i want you to respond because you've been fighting this a lot and then i want to hear from you, jared. >> the fact of the matter is that the jobs crisis is cyclical. it's the fact of weak demand.

edward lazear who's a conservative economist came out with a paper at the jackson hole conference last week. he pointed out the simple fact, the industry that lost hardest during the down turn have gained jobs the fastest back during the upturn. there's other research that shows in the counties where there's the most household debt going into the crisis, they've had the worst economic come backs. lack of demand, over indenlded, household sector. not some idea how we need to completely retool it. >> jared, you're on the inside. does the strugtsdial theory have purchase or do people inside that white house see it as a demand problem, as a cyclical problem? >> demand, cyclical, including president. in a 50-minute speech that's the one thing the former president got wrong.

in fact, if you actually look at the numbers nrk a typical economy, there's twice that many unfilled job openings. in fact, college unemployment rates are elevated. but, listen, in terms of the short term, you're absolutely right. but with fiscal policy as jerry nadler was talking about, that kind of demand, phil, fiscal stuff is off the table right now. i see only two things in the near term that could help that might be possible. one is the federal reserve, which is kind of outside the system. wi haven't talked about that. but they could help. and probably this week they will. be but the other is solving the fiscal cliff. i actually think that would be something that would really help the economy and it's something we should do yesterday. there may be enough political grown-ups in the room to accomplish that sometime in the next few months. >> i just want to finish this off by saying the democrats do have -- we should hammer this home. there's an american jobs act sitting on congress on the

short-term demand side solution or at least a way of addressing the cyclical jobs problems. there's nothing about that in the short term. >> the republicans say nothing. all they say is -- it was remarkbling in romney's speech. reduce the debt and that will create jobs. >> romney actually has -- >> that's not working in europe. >> ligright. and let me say, low-hanging fruit. >> we've deliberately thrown away 600,000 public service jobs. >> there is low hanging fruit. thank you for joining us this morning and joe weisenthal. thank you. >> thank you. democrats revel in the culture wars when we get back. with the spark miles card from capital one, thor's couture gets the most rewards of any small business credit card. your boa!

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all right. watching the democratic national convention over the past week it was hard to not notice the gleefulness in which the democrats engaged on the culture war. >> women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies. >> controlled health care choices that women should be making for themselves. >> when it comes to letting people love who they love and marry who they want to marry, mitt romney says no. >> mr. romney, my family is just as real as yours. >> it's not just dreamers. democrats value all immigrants. >> president obama believes that even those those dreamers, those kids didn't choose to come here, they have chosen to do right by america and it's time for us to do right by them. >> the rhetoric has been moved by rhetoric on the platform. they left the issue of marriage

equality to the states saying in our country marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years and we believe it should continue to be defined there. just eight years later the platform reads we support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. we support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. it's easierier to forget that just eight years ago the conventional wisdom was that the culture wars benefitted republicans. in fact, they pushed anti-gay marriage ball lot initiatives. president obama defined it as between and man and woman. on immigration it wasn't tell this year that the president announced he would enact a d.r.e.a.m.-like policy.

what happens that democrats seem so confident that they have choice on those things. joining me is nancy keenan. a speaker on the stage in prime time during the convention. >> thanks, chris, wonderful to be here. >> those are three issues. marriage quality, and choice. he says we can cut the country in have. at that time they were talking about law and order and bussing. the idea being you want to heighten the contradictions, focus on dividing people because we've gottet the majority on our side and democrats have acting politically for a long time on these issues in kind of ee defensive crowd and i think the most striking part of this convention was the total reversal. you've been working on this

issue for a while. what has happened? what was -- do you agree with me it was different at this convention and if it was, why? >> i think that, first, around the issue of choice that american public has remained steadfastly pro-choice. all the polling shows it doesn't change dramatically. what happens is the political landscape changes a bit. when we had in the late '80s, early '90s, then president bill clinton. people were paying attention to choice. the president then running for pretty was talking about it a lot and so we saw this surge of interest in the issue of choice. democrats won, the issue fell off the radar screen after, that but then we see a spike at the state levels and so we see the antichoice rhetoric gear up when we tend to have a pro-choice

president. i think o'things thank priority in their lives. the minute this becomes something in front of the supreme court it raises it up and people begin to have much more attention in what's at stake. >> your thoir, this is kind of a pendulum. the issue rises and falls in prominence. i think on the marriage quality it feels like a steady marriage in one direction. >> let me look at the difference. the democrats of millennials. the issue of gay marriage was smnlt they didn't have but they wanted. the energy around that, isn't, oh, i need to prototext. its like lets stand up for the status quo. >> the story is always the

dynamic between them. now the state legislators are 56%. and so then what we're seeing is a lot of abortion-related restrictionist policy. so then we see the backlash in terms of the democrats asserting themselves. and i do think it's going to cofor a while. redistricting happening under 2010 state legislature. >> we're showing this remarkable chart rachel has shown which is state abortion restriction initiatives which absolutely spike after the 2010 elections but then come down. i want to share polling too. abortion is pro-choice but the responses of people really go all over the place, depending on how you phrase the question. but it's been very consistent.

i think polling on choice has been consistent since 1975 more or less. so, yeah, you see there the g gallup. 19% in 1975. 20% now. >> hold that second i want to bring in stan greenberg who's been polling on this for quite a while right after we take this break.

congress mman nadler, you h a point. >> the polling hasn't changed on the issue. most people are pro-choice but not under all circumstances. for years the right wing managed to frame the debate about seemingly extremist questions

about partial birth abortions but the republican party has become so right wing on the subject and so extremist that now they're talking extremes on the other side, prohibiting abortions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the mother. >> or the personhood amendment. before contraception -- >> therefore prohibiting contraception. when you're dealing with these issues, of course, it seems extreme and it is. >> sam greenberg, pollster. good morning. good to have you. you've been polling this issue for a while. i'm curious. when you look at choice specifically but then broader, this kind of it, are we seeing rhetoric that we saw on the stage? >> i think it's actually a very, very big -- it's bagger issue than you're describing it and i think you set it up for that answer. in part it's about women and

young people and more affluent young suburban women voters. it's much, much, much bigger question about what these two coalitions really have developed and stand for. a world view associated with it. diversity, tolerance, women's rights. it's a little more secular. ed when when the world view is fighting about that, they have a bigger advantage. when you're talking about spending and budgets and deficits and very material things, then you get a 2010 election. now we're looking at a different kind of election. >> john, how does this strike you as someone who had been sort of on the american right in a way or associated with the institutions for a while. >> sympathetic to the american right when it comes to specifically race questions when i think a lot of o their

positions would have been liberal in 1960. i would say the dog that hasn't barked in this convention is the black issue and i have to speak to it because i think if a war is something a that people win and lose then the right has won on issues such as for example welfare reform. the proper one is he is looking to bolster people but put into work rather than staying on welfare which means the right win on that one in terms of affirmative action. it doesn't have to be the year for it. it's coming up. i think the right's going to win on that one as well. we're not going have the kind of afurthermorive action that was class nick the '80s and '90s. on some parts of them, certainly the black one, we haven't heard it. >> in terms of what they increasingly look like is really the heart of the matter.

i want to talk more about that. in particular not to even brace the authority for a d.r.e.a.m. act who is, hers undocumented and the policies of that issue right after this break. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool

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[ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? . good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. i'm here with victoria defrancesco soto, jerrold nadler, nancy keenan, john mcwwhorter, stan greenberg and jared bernstein. many of these issues i had been accustomed to seeing particularly eight years ago when they were very prominent in

the electorate and it seemed they had the upper hand and were the aggressor. one of those issues is choice which we talked about. you, nancy keenan, at the podium. one is immigration which is one of those issues that gets people very hot in the cheeks. the democrats took what i thought was an incredibly gutsy admirable move which put a woman on the stage who talked about the president's decision to allow women -- children, people such as hers to apply through an administrative procedure to get a temporary status. this is bonita talking about her struggles. >> i graduated as valedictorian of my class at the age of 16 but i've had to live almost my

entire life knowing coy uld be deported because of the way i came here. president obama fought for the d.r.e.a.m. act to help people like me, and when congress refused to pass it, he didn't give up. instead he took action. >> victoria how are you interpreting this? this is pretty remarkable. when you think about the classic democratic quest for the white working class voter, this is the kind of thing that's going to be toxic to them. >> it was a bold move to put benita on the stage and i applaud it. the issue of immigration has been here for a long time, more specifically the problem of

imgation, millions of kids who don't have their status regularized. it's a bittersweet pill that reminds us of it. why not pass the d.r.e.a.m. act. i'm not saying comprehensive. that would have been hard but why didn't he pass the d.r.e.a.m. act? >> republicans voted against it -- >> during his first two years. so during his first two years -- >> because of the filibuster. >> he promised. >> that seems an unfair attack to me. the fairer attack would be to ramp up deportation. >> but he made the promise that he would regularize status. he didn't make an electoral promise that i'm going to decrease depore take. it's always known if you're going to address deportation, you want to regularize status and enforce the borders. he made a promise. you know, politically it wasn't feasible, i get that, but the d.r.e.a.m. act was politically feasible early on. >> you're up, congressman. >> i wish it was.

we pushed the d.r.e.a.m. act very hard. we passed it in the house. it was defeated by a republican filibuster in the second. >> second part of the administration. >> the fact is the republicans even in the first part of the administration, as long as you have have one or two democrats, senator nelson, there was always one or two, republicans except with on rare occasions could block anything because of the filibuster and certainly since senator kennedy died and scott brown replaced him, on all occasions. >> i looked at this 2-1 margin. i was surprised. that margin is pretty wide. is that normal? >> first of all, if you ask about the d.r.e.a.m. act, we ask about the plur alt of whites are again but overwhelmingly hispanics are for it. i do think this is -- this is

really about -- on the one hand talking about our values, which include rights and inclues inness, but it's also about an unbelievable impact of having a republican presidential candidate taking positions that could alienate a generation and also create a motivation to participate in this election that we have not, you know, seen before. so this has the ability to be defining and i think highlighting it at the convention along with a whole range of cultural issues in a way that shows the democratic party to be diverse, open, tolerant, and say this election is more -- more than about the economy. >> and don't forget that there's a republican sector that supports it. so jeb bush says his party is being stupid on immigration. so there is still that fact. >> i just want to emphasize. i just want to emphasize that during the primary. you want to see the biggest lead you saw for the president. it was during the republican primaries when social issues,

cultural issues were dominant. what the democrats were doing were saying cultural issues were mattering in this election and can impact it. something long term because it's important here. the issue of jobs is a transcendent issue but the republicans are framing it that, you, mr. president are not competent. that's short term. whether or not he's running, in 2016 it's going to be someone else. but the social issues, especially immigration, are long-term defining. and as stanley said, they're alienating a generation. yes there are people like karl rove and jeb bush who understand this but because they're aim yen nating them and because of that, that's why they're going into voter suppression to stop an emerging democratic majority which they are generating. >> so i want to lay out two thees here because it seem like

we have two pockets ssibilities. one theory is the center of it is moving toward the democrats. there's problem. and the evidence on same marriage is true or it could with the case the lector rats isn't moving toward it but they're moving away to the left of it. birth control has been more of the case. what i noted is for all of the invocations of women's health, the word abortion was almost no to where to be spounld except for the notable exception of yourself who mentioned it several times. what does that say to you about what they say, how confident they are that the electorate is moving twartd. >> i'll go back to that democrats are there on the issue

of abortion and protecting women's rights. i think the issue that they don't speak abortion. look. they talked -- almost every speaker spoke about choice. it's my job as president of naral to talk about very specifically abortion, but i also think this comes down to women's votes and so whether it's immigration, whether it is marriage equality, whether it's the issue of reproductive choice, women out there, i think, are going to make the difference, especially the battleground state. >> you've got a mother who wants to be able to go to college. women care about the issue of choice and are outraged that they now want to make contraception not available. and so the issue around is extreme. >> the thing you're saying, the potency of it when you talk about contraception is a

backlash response to extreme -- >> that's right. >> the term itself can say abortion can drift away from what it refers to whereas a person who's in fab of it might avoid using that term to avoid those resonances but that didn't mean their opinion has changed. >> stan, were you surprised or not surprised by the nonappearance. is that what you would counsel in your memos. >> i said let's not forget the position on cultural issues. two positions, particularly contraception but most recently legitimate rape. they've taken positionings where you can see voters step back and say they're not really taking these positions. people were in favor of this,

especially catholics who use contraception. i think both high pocket the cease are true. they've taken such positions they they've opened up a space for the democrats. >> let's be clear. >> i agree with stanley. the situation is different on abortion and gay rights for example because on abortion, the position of the people has been largely the same. on gay rights it's been moving and changing more rapidly than on anywhere of the social issues we've seen in memory. there's been a tremendous shift and it's a generation shift but it's also a shift within generations. people under 35, what's the issue with gay marriage, why do we care about it? obviously it should be allowed. but the people as a whole -- this is a long-term shift. as people know -- it was famously mentioned that justice blackman, i think, on the day of the baurs decision which said -- which allowed laws against consensual sodomy, against being

gay, said to his gay law clerk, don't know anybody who's gay. today everyone knows somebody who's gay, a cousin or brother or something. >> even there, that the proper way of putting it is one should be able to be marry who one polices, we're talking about gay marriages. >> i want to show the totality of invocations of marriage from both the nominee and the republican party and his running mate right after we take this break. ♪ [ male announcer ] from our nation's networks... ♪ ...to our city streets... ♪ ...to skies around the world... ♪ ...northrop grumman's security solutions are invisibly at work, protecting people's lives... [ soldier ] move out! [ male announcer ] ...without their even knowing it. that's the value of performance.

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as president i'll protect the sanctity of life, i'll honor the institution of marriage. >> not only marriage but he

offers an example of marriage at its best. >> that is all we got, the republican convention from the two people on the ticket on marriage. not even, you know -- not even going out and saying one man and one woman which is what george w. bush said in his own convention in 2004 and that language was prevalent in 2008 as well. that to me is a greatest indicator of where things are on this specific issue. stan, the polling on this issue seems to be -- congressman nadler just said it's the most remarkable shift we've seen. that's my sense as well. >> i'm in awe of it. i've watched it in election after election. i remember in 2004 john kerry, we had bush running on a constitutional amendment on marriage. i wrote, you know, a memo after the election based on a poll that it was one of the issues that cost him maybe even ohio. now you have the president of

the united states, you know, supporting marriage equality, a larger majority of the country in favor of it. and you want to understand why the right is concerned about the culture war. they do thing -- and they may be right -- that they're losing the culture war. they're looking at the diversity of the country, they're looking at issues related to marriage, and they see everything at risk and they could be right because the country has gone way beyond it, particularly on marriage. >> because it's generational. it's not just that we're seeing that generational shift of seeing or approving gay marriage but among the minorities who may be more conservative they're also supporting it. i'm going with the party that does so. >> it's starting to move. >> there was a face put to it. there was a point it became political. my mother, my sister, my brother, my cousin. it became a face to someone that loved and wanted to get married. >> and think that was something very effectively done at the

convention. sac wall zack walls, the son of two women who are gay marriage and benita veniz. sandra fluke. it doesn't get any more prominent. >> and sandra fluke. >> please, stan, go ahead. >> it's a real message, but it's also a generational piece and she, i think, was the voice of it because as we said with the -- you know, with hispanics and latinos, that with young people when they look at gay marriage, when they look at climate change, and they look at these issues, they say, who are -- what is this party, the republican party and what they believe. you know, in is about winning young voters back and winning

women back but it's also, i think, much bigger and will have enduring effects because you just won't have young people thinking the republican party is relevant to their lives. >> this is where sandra, you know, to be talking about contraception, to be denied to speak on a panel. all white men talking about birth control and saying it was not relevant that she had an opportunity to speak. this is -- this was for young women, i believe, our anita hill moment. this was a moment -- >> interesting. >> -- where you said, oh, my god, they're talking about my birth control? where before we knew in the movement who live and died with this, we knew they were as much about anti-contraception as they were about being anti-choice. and all of it in between. >> let me respond to that. i want to channel the argument from republicans on this for a second which is the right will say that basically this anti-contraception jihad has been dreamed up by people such as yourself, the democratic

party, because they understand the parts of contraception and they want that as a political issue when, in fact, you have one video of rick santorum saying contra sechks is not good and opposition to the one directive coming out of hhs, basically republicans say that's it. and mitt romney says i don't want to talk about it. i'm not going to do anything on contraception as president. how do you respond to that? >> you have mitt romney talking about supporting a personhood amendment which would not only outlaw birth control and stem cell research a. they are the ones that went on the attack on contraception. they're the ones who have been talking about an city nation and not allows young people, if you will, to have accurate information and make good decisions about their reproductive health. >> and they are the ones who made a big deal -- they and the

catholic church leadership who made a big deal of religious liberty out of this contraception thing when, in fact, 28% had a -- >> stan? >> they're suing the president and they're trying to make it an issue all across the country. they're acting on this. this is like -- romney may not want to talk about it, but the fact that they have this in the platform is part of them acting on it in the congress, acting on it in state legislature, govern governors. this is a real issue in practice. they just don't want to talk about it. so we're absolutely right to note that. >> co-author with james carvi e carville, "it's the middle class stupid!" >> the first lady in chief, that's next. he unexpected happe, there's one brand of battery more emergency workers trust in their maglites: duracell.

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to our conversation about brkt control we should note the senate republicans blount and scott brown co-sponsored an amendment that would essentially override the hhs's decision and also allow people that are employers to deny contraception coverage for any reason both spiritual or moral or anything else so, that was actually a substantive piece of policy advanced by the politicians. >> moderate. >> scott brown in a very highly contested race against elizabeth warren. first lady michelle obama moved an incredible moving speech which combined her love for her country and her love for her husband an her kids. she talked about working hard, doing what you're supposed to do with honesty and inted gri and she did it with tears in here ey eyes. these are the kinds of things they're trying to pass on to

their children. this is what most stood out to me. >> at the end of the day my most important title is still mom in chief. my daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world. >> joining me now is kristin rowe-finkbeiner. you were down in charlotte. you spoke at a meeting of the women's caucus, i think the same morning that michelle obama was speaking. what's your reaction to that line? what does that line mean to you? >> i love that line. that line was like a modern feminist statement. one of the reasons for that is that 80% of women do have children by the time we're 44 years old, but too often women have to hide the fact that we have children, we hide the pictures in our offices, we don't talk about our children in the professional world because

there is significant wage and hiring discrimination against moms. so to have the first lady stand up there and say my job and one of the important parts of my jobs is mom in chief is a significant boost to the women out there who are struggling. >> did you interpret it the same way? >> yes, i did. >> did you really? >> yes. well in the sense of saying, yeah, i thought it was honest and i thought it was fundamentally for women. they wake up every day and you can go to work and you can work two jobs, you try to make ens meet but fundamentally what you want is best for your children. that's what she roy was saying. she was speaking to the american women juggling two jobs, who are trying to find a way to get the kids to soccer and get the car tuned up and so she was talking to middle america out there. and she is a mom, and she adores those children. she wants to protect them on some level and so to me sh is the mom in chief and she spoke to the american public around that issue economically and

emotionally. >> john. >> there's something i'm unclear of on this. it disturb me. it disturbed me when she spoke in 2008. no matter how hard i try -- i understand what you're say -- what i saw was someone with legal training, a high-powered career where she's in a situation for whatever situation she has to be the prisoner for the coo californ the career of her husband for four years, maybe eight. most people are parents and that's important but the idea is she has to downplay all of the other things that she is. and she has to and i get it but i just look at her as a high-powered career person who is not a man where the primary image of her for us and the one where we're all supposed to well up is she's married to a person and we give her an ovation to being married to a person who we like and she has to talk about the fact that she's a parent and

is primary. that is to all of us parents to an extent. but if we were getting to the past i would like it to be equally prominent and she's doing something on her own -- >> i should note that people noted the introductory video of her did not talk about the fact that she's an attorney and her job is administrator of the hospital in chicago. >> i think downplaying women's intellectual success is an incredible problem in society and that gets to the root of why saying mom in chief was a feminist statement because it's putting out there front and center that mom in chief is something that a lot of women do, it's unpaid labor and it's not recognized and we're penalized so significantly for it that we have to hide it. one thing i want to do is what is going on in the background? what's the context of this statement? we have a new time in history. three quarters of moms are in the labor force. first them are the primary

time in history half of the entire labor force are women but we do not have the economic policies in place to make sure we have economic security. we have a quarter of children living in poverty. so in that sense we had missouri in her speed speaking to economic security policies and speaking to the pass alk of the lilly ledbetter page rate act. we didn't have her bringing forward her kre dren den chals in the way i like but i stand by the fact that the mom in chief is an important statement because we need to acknowledge it's important work. >> it was taken that way. >> yeah. >> i want to just in a second bring in jessica valenti who just wrote a book about having kids and the roles that mother's play symbiotically and actually ly because there's this discussion they're having and also an amazing bitter sound of mitt romney's mother talking about her views on these two different roles right after we take this break. mid grade dark roast

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nancy, you had a point to make not just about the first lady and her role as female poll politician. >> actually they have young children and that time and time again in this political arena, in the political sphere they're asked can you do this job and really take care of your children and think that's a double standard. >> huge. >> huge double standard. >> dravs me bon kerrs. >> it is done all the time for women. never is that same question asked of male politicians. >> and that's because on the one hand women in the work force in very large numbers but on the other hand, they're still the pry nair caretaker of children and we haven't adjusted to thatnd a we don't proper will i support them with day care. >> i want to introduce jessica valenti who has a new book out called "why have kids."

it poses a question why smart women would choose to have kids at all. she writes decades after the second wave of feminism, the argument over how best to care for children still almost entirely falls on women's shoulders. men aren't simply excused from the conversation, they're deliverly excluded by a culture and politics that still promote the idea that the only appropriate carob giver, the only natural parent, is a mother. jessica, as someone who's a new father myself, it cut pretty deep. when you saw this mom in chief line from the first lady, did you have the same reaction sazer as some of the folks at the table? >> no. i hated that line. i slunk back in my chair when i heard that line. >> i'm not alone. >> i don't doubt that michelle obama values her children more than her work. i think all parents do. that line wasn't about family life.

it's about about making a strong women more pat elable in a competitive world. it gets exhausting. i'm tired of these constant caveats that we're moms first, right? there's this cull real expectation with women that we want to become parents and when we do become parents it's going to be the most important, most wonderful, most fulfilling thing we're ever going to d and we'll be moms first and i'm so over it. >> i think one of the most important things here is when we push so strongly against traditional gender roles we shoot ourselves in the foot. to not talk about motherhood hurts us all. right now one study found that women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar. women with children make 73 cents to a dollar. single moms make about 60 cents and women of color make less than that. what's happening here is a lack of discussion about mother hood,

about what policies we can move forward for both moms and dads, not just moms to help move our culture forward, our society forward and movie economy. >> and we need to have a conversation about fatherhood as well. we can ask men, how can you do your job if you have four children at home. >> i have to say. i went on book tour this summer and i was on the road a lot. and i was not a good father during that period of time. there's no -- i was not around and my wife had to do a lot. she carried the entire burden and i thought to myself, you know, if you're a politician, you're basically doing this all the time. i mean -- and that's just like -- that just baked in the cake. people basically just assumed that away. i'm not seeing my kid. i'm not seeing my kid. i'm not carrying any load here. i have -- i am now doing things that mean that kate, my wife, has to carry that burden and it was a short-term thing but i saw this window into a world in which this is the norm and it made me think about --

>> it's part of a much larger disconnect because our society is developing unevenly as most societies do. you see this in a number of ways. on the one hand we want women this the work-force and opportunities. we don't accept -- we don't even accept a man who is a house husband who is looket at as strange. we also don't provide proper support in terms of day carry and so forth to enable women not to -- to be able to function in the work force, and, finally, when some of these issues you can't even talk about because when was day care a big political issue? and coming back to our welfare discussion, a mom who's on welfare must not stay at home with her kids. >> right. >> because then she's not -- >> she's not working. >> she's a loafer. whereas ann romney should stay home with her kids. it's a wonderful thing. >> jessica, you talk about this

expectation in the book. >> i wanted to get to something you were saying, chris, about this expectation of who takes care of the children. the idea that women are the designated parent is literally not just a part of the culture but it's a part of the policy. when the census bureau counts as what counts as child care, women count as the child care. any hours that father puts in is counted add baby-sitting and i think that's unbelievable. so when you take care of your kid, that's baby-sitting according to the -- >> i once heard a father say, someone i knew say -- casually say i can't do that. i'm baby-sitting that night. and someone else saying, no, no, no, you're not baby-sitting. you're parenting. i want to talk more about this and about the shocking research to me that's in this book about the relationship between happiness and having kids. it's not at all what you might

expect right after this. i don't spend money on gasoline. i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive around town all the time doing errands and never ever have to fill up gas in the city. i very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. the last time i went to the gas station must have been about three months ago. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. ♪

you wanted to get a point in responding to jessica as we were talking about this sort of expectation that's built in about who shoulders the burden of child care and also that has market ramifications in the economy. >> exactly. what we're looking at is what happens to gender roles and what happens to pay when you become a parent, and the impacts on men and women are very different. so there was a research done at cornell university that was done with equal resumes and it found that people who noted they were a mother on resume were offered $11,000 lower starting salaries than nonmom bus dads on the other hand were offered $6,000 more than people who didn't have kids. so we're having market pressure, cultural pressure and also societal pressure and at the same time we're not addressing theseicious in congress the way that we should. right now child care costs more

than college in many states. we're not talking about that. this is a significant em nconom problems. we have women having babies off a cliff. >> jessica, can i ask you a question? >> absolutely. >> i am the father of an 8-month-old and luckily i can afford day care and three months later my wife went back to work. she experienced a certain amount of guilty and i had never experienced that before in talking to various women friends that i have. i found that that is kmcommon, that women have that? is that culturally conditioned? i was struck by this. is it culturally conditioned -- and i know we're not supposed to say this -- or is it biological? >> you're not going to get the biological answer from me, no. i think it's culturally

conditioned. >> basic womb throbbing. >> yeah, exactly. the ovaries go crazy. no. this is about women being taught from the time they're little girls, right, this is what you're meant to do, you're going to always want to do this, and it's also this problem of seeing parenting as a private domestic issue as opposed to a larger political issue and the problem of americans in particular thinking that the best thing for their children is a singular caretaker, most often mom, right? we kind of look at day care as the last option available to us when really it's a wonderful option, great socialization for kids but we're stuck on this idea as mom is the best caretaker. >> i was inclined toward your view but i just wanted to hear something from someone else. >> i want snow a little bit of sound that was a very i think different image of mother. motherhood and the symbolism of

motherhood was very powerful at the republican convention. here's ann romney speak about how she views the role of mother and its centrality in american life and culture. >> it's the moms who have aurd had to work a little harder to make everything right. it's the moms of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold this country together. we're the mothers. we're the wives. we're the grandmothers. we're the big sisters. we're the little sisters. and we are the daughters. >> there's two things there. it's moms who always have to work a little harder absolutely right. absolutely a true descriptive statement about american life but not a good aspiration of how things should be. also the idea of love so deeply only a mother can fact only it, the love we have for our children. i don't know. i think i love my kid as much as my wife does. i know that -- i know everybody's shaking their head, no, mother's love, mother's

love. i want to talk about that and get to this happiness question right after this break. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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there's some evidence you talk about in the book, jessica, that strikes of happiness. why have a kid. we're no longer of an age to have kids be farmhands or care for you in your old age. you ask why people are having kids and they say the joy of being a parent. if someone would have asked me, it's something i would have said. the evidence is robust across a whole bunch of studies, people get less happy after they have children. was really surprised to hear that. >> yeah, they do report less levels of happiness. and what i thought was really interesting is that a lot of that unhappiness can be traced, especially when a new baby comes along to the unequal division of labor that happens once parents

have a kid and the woman is kind of taking over the -- most of the child care responsibilities and she starts to feel a little bit resentful. but i think the bigger question is why do we expect our kids to bring us happiness? you know, that's a lot of pressure to put on one little person. the idea of joy is a new one and unrealistic expectation, really, i think. >> but if we don't expect kids to bring us happiness, then what's the answer to the question you pose in the book? i mean, because that to me was sort of the profound end of this. and, in fact, it is not just an individual thing. what we see as countries grow more developed and there's less as they create, for instance, social insurance systems to take care of people in their old age, as women are more educated and have more ready access to contraception, uniformly essentially across the board we see birthrates go down. and we sort of question, where is all that headed in the grand

sense of things? >> sure. i think a better answer is we should be having kids for the love of it, not for the joy of it. love is messy and complicated and sometimes you hate the person you love and sometimes you want to put them in a time-out. but it's not always joyful but more realistic. >> kristen? >> i think the love of it is very important. i also think that jessica spoke to an important point when she talked about the source of the unhappiness. the unequal division of labor and the pressures of motherhood. just to go back to the personal, the personal is so political, motherhood is the challenge of the modern feminist movement that we have to address. people cannot get to the glass ceiling because they cannot hurdle the maternal wall, but one of the issues starts when you have a baby. over 177 countries have some form of paid leave for moms. in the u.s. we have nothing. so people are having babies and a cultural pressure cooker that has significant economic

implications on the mom and the dad. and we have to address that. in fact, if countries that have access to family paid leave and access to sick days. the wage gap we talked about earlier in the show narrows, so we find it is not just good for raising healthy kids, who do pay for our social security so we can retire at an elderly age, but also so we can -- >> part of the problem, sorry, i was just going to say part of the problem is we don't have the will to get it done. we don't see moms mobilizing around these issues in the way they mobilize around consumer issues online. i mean, i absolutely think about that. i don't see the will there. >> i think this part of connecting the personal and political and whether or not young women or women in general see the importance of the policies that affect their economic lives happen in the

state legislatures of the governors and the congressional level. and if women only represent 17% there, our voices at that table sometimes are not in the issues raised, whether it is the cost of childcare, whether it is having the parental leave and the time off after having a child. the access to birth control has made for women the opportunity to enter that workforce at full force, to determine when they are going to have children or not. and i think, again, the connecting the personal to the political here and understanding the impact on valuing families, valuing children, valuing whether or not we are going to have children or not is something that has to be also connected to the political because it has such an affect on our lives. >> i want to play a bit of sound that we found. it is not widely known that mitt romney -- everyone knows mitt romney's father was governor and ran for president, but his mother was a position as well.

i think she ran for senate in michigan. this is her talking in a fascinating way about the role, the relationship between the personal and political and motherhood as a politician running for office. this is lenora romney. >> she's told she shouldn't put her time there, she should be driven away here there and every place but not make a contribution any place. let someone else do it in the day care centers or let someone else do it in the schools and they are not doing it. if you were told the most important thing you could do to raise your children so they would become happy, well adjusted citizens who are contributing and that you would get credit for this, you would do it, wouldn't you? but if you were told, this is no kind of a job, you're entrapped and enslaved, you're not getting a wage for this, good grief, what kind of a wage do you want? but to have your child contribute and make a contribution, i'm just telling you we are going about it in a wrong way. >> it's an amazing moment

because she's sort of defending the role of mother as a stay-at-home mom and the dignity of the work and then someone running for office in a same breath. it's a fascinating moment. jessica valenti, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. we talked about the slow decline of newspapers. the last newspaper in one town enjoys outside influence for a while precisely because the competition is gone. addressing whether the publishers are inclined to indulge their personal politics in their paper's reporting. i repeated the great phase nobody buys a bike and doesn't ride it. turns out i contributed this incorrectly. neil stineberg coined the phrase. we apologize fur or error. we blew there this what we know at the end because i thought that conversation was so fascinating. thank you for being a part of it. my thanks to kristin from

momsrising.org. new york congressman jerry adler and nancy keenan from pro choice america. thank you for getting up. thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow morning sunday at 8:00. it is a great show packed with congressional candidate tulsi gabbard. military service in iraq turned her from a republican to a democrat. and jeremy scahill, we'll talk about foreign policy played at the democratic national convention and the question for the next two months, how to win a campaign? what works? there's a lot of conventional wisdom out there. coming up next is melissa harris-perry. melissa asked which donkey showed up in charlotte, eeyore or the donkey from shrek? see you tomorrow morning here at 8:00. thank you for getting up.

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